How can it be August tomorrow? Certainly July has been very Summery, giving us a heat wave for the last little while and I hope August will be fair. But I won’t mind if we get a little rain and slightly cooler days. Luckily my basement studio is a reasonable place to work if I plug in a fan.

I have bisque-fired all the Raiders’ work from July 20th and managed to fit all but one into the subsequent glaze firing. I fired two test tumblers of my own, thrown with my D’Arcy’s Redart clay along with the Raiders’ loads. The new plan was to bisque to cone 04 (maturity temperature for both clays) and then take the new Mayco commercial glaze to cone 05 which is a cone cooler. This is a complete reversal from what I’ve always done but is what the clay and glaze manufacturers, and ceramics industry recommend. It’s just not what studio potters do so there’s a bit of guilt involved on my part – taking the easy way out.

The glaze behaved very nicely on both clays, producing a good clear and bright finish. I’m astonished and rather pleased to find that the new glaze fits my red clay very well, with no crazing (at this point). There are slight flaws on the rims of a couple of the white clay plates so I shall fire those again. My friend Ysy of Port Moody’s Spatial Studio, who uses this clay and a commercial glaze herself, suggests that I start to bisque fire all my slab plates before my guests paint them, from now on. She feels that this will avoid accidental breakages and any possible dust issues. Fingers crossed.

There are lots of plates to show you as there were five artists here for the latest Raid. So I’ll add them below and the sorting system of WordPress will re-arrange them for me so I’ll add first names to each image.

Eric Metcalfe enjoyed drawing with a ceramic pencil on a bisqued yellow-slip-painted plate, and painted another one of his favourite-shape plate, with a rim, in red, black, turquoise and yellow.

Pierre Coupey worked on two large round platters, but one has had to wait for the next firing. This one features the letter E. His other experiment is with wax resist on a smaller coupe, with grey and a pink.

Mina Totino wanted to make another huge green plate, this time a darker shade, and a big yellow one too. Her other piece is white and square, with a surprising blue back.

Kate Metten spent most of her day here working on a carefully drafted pattern in red and white, with a smart pink edge. She drew it in pencil but of course that all burnt away in the bisque firing. Now it is a striking optical design. She finished her day applying meticulous circles and black rims to a couple of the little triangular dishes she’d requested. There are signature circles on the reverse of these two.

And our new guest, Tamara Mills, the daughter of Raider Michelle Normoyle, had a happy day experimenting with lots of ideas using many colours, overlapping them and painting lines and shapes. Her oval platter is quite striking. She painted three of the little triangle dishes too.

I threw two tumblers just to test the changed firing temperatures and the new glaze on my favourite clay. One was painted with my coloured slips and the other was just coated with Redart terra sigillata. I shall risk doing this again with a selection of my work along with the Raiders’ and may well abandon my decades-long use of  ‘Deb’s Clear’ glaze.

The next Raid is scheduled for August 22nd, when we’ll celebrate the birthdays of a couple of the Raiders but first I must do more firings and make several more plates. AND there are several jugbirds awaiting their coats.